Eugene Coyle wrote:
>But I wonder if that is because there is a steady stream of cheerleading
>about how wonderful the free market is -- so that I (we) react to it? The
>newsreaders on TV are very happy when the Dow Jones goes up. The San
>Francisco Chronicle headlines a 0.1 point drop in the unemployment rate and
>buries a 0.1 point increase on the inside. So are we just reacting to that?
No, I don't think so. I think progressive economists lack confidence
in their critique of capitalism and their ability to win allies when
the system is working reasonably well. So in good times, they wish
for disaster, and in bad times, they get all excited. Since
advanced/imperialist/rich/industrialized economies usually recover
from recession in no more than a year, at first they deny the
recovery, then they fall silent, until there's some hint of a new
crisis. Needless to say, this is a prescription for intellectual and
political marginalization.
I did my last installment of Nation indicators on the latest U.S.
income and poverty reports. The theme was that sustained tight labor
markets have done quite a bit of good, contributing to rising real
wages, a declining racial income gap, the lowest black poverty rate
on record, and a declining crime rate. I got some emails criticizing
me for being too Pollyannaish and ignoring all the bad news. I'll bet
lots of the people reading this paragraph will have the same reaction.
Doug
